For two years I will be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and serving the people in the area of the Salt Lake City East Mission! My mother has volunteered to post my letters and pictures on this blog so you can follow me. I have been preparing for my mission for 18 years by exercising faith and building a testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ and His amazing Gospel. Please email or write me if you have any questions or just want to talk!

Monday, February 27, 2017

This week has been a really good one. Definitely an
improvement from last week! We were able to find that Vietnamese couple that we
told you about. They were super prepared. We taught them the Doctrine of Christ
when we first contacted them. They understood the simplicity of Christ’s gospel
and accepted a baptismal date. We were able to go back by that night with a
Vietnamese recent convert and taught the
Restoration. They recognized on their own that the path to finding out if all
of this is true was to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and come to
church. They offered their first prayers in our two lessons and it was amazing!
Their name is pronounced like "cow," so when we prayed
before the lesson, I prayed to bless us that we will be able to have the spirit
with us to know what to teach the "Cows"… I cracked up at the end. It was
a struggle, but I think God was probably laughing too…Hopefully.

We also have started teaching another family from Africa.
The mother has been coming to church for a pretty long while with
another African family in the ward. The kids have come on and off, but the
family has always rejected joining because they go to another church and are confused about priesthood authority and baptism. We had a great
lesson with them last night where we were able to use the Book of Mormon and
the Bible to testify of each other. They accepted the invitation to be baptized
if they receive an answer from God that the Book of Mormon is true! It was
amazing because the first lesson we had with them on Friday didn't go so well.
We started out with some good questions when they brought up the concern that
they had already been baptized. Actually, it started out something like this...

Elder Moe: Have you guys thought about being missionaries
one day?

The Daughters: Yea! Yeah! That'd be cool!

Elder Moe: Have you ever gone out and translated for the
Swahili Sister missionaries before?

Elder Jensen: turns and whispers to Elder Moe They are all
non members...

Elder Moe: Quietly replies Ohhhhh...

Brief silence

Elder Moe: Well, have you guys thought about joining the
church and getting baptized?? (:

Lesson proceeds

One of the daughters was trying to roast us because we
worship on Sunday and not Saturday, so that ending part of the lesson didn't
go that great just because we were facing a lot of stubbornness. Our next
lesson went a ton better! They are going to have us over on Friday and make foo
foo and a bunch of African food. We are going to bring a Lingala translator and
maybe the Swahili missionaries.

We had investigators at church as well and were able to see
a ton of miracles!

We met this awesome guy named M this week as well. How we
ended up meeting him is kinda a long story, but we were able to talk to him one
night when he had his brother over. Missionaries worked with him a ton in the
past. They drug him to church quite a bit because he never came. He has been in
Samoa for a few months and just got back a bit ago. We shared a message from the
Book of Mormon when Alma found Amulek and they worked together and were given
power from God. We had a fellowshipper leave us high and dry later this week
for a lesson with a family where the husband was at work so
we couldn't come in, and so we grabbed M to come with us. He said yes he
would help us out, but he wasn’t going to say anything. He ended up bearing a
powerful testimony and said that he had been praying that we would come by that
night (that we came the first time) and he is trying to get active again.

We had an awesome week. I know this is God’s work and that
D&C 33:6-10 is so true: "For lo, I am with you." He is with each of us and
will deliver us from anything we are captive by if we trust in Him and turn to Him. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Jesus Christ is our Savior
and Redeemer.

Love,

Elder Moe

"This is some leftover Bengali food from the Gonsalvases we are teaching. This is how we ate it at their house. No utensils!! Mmmmmmmm"

"These are the missionaries from the Mexico MTC. They came in the night before, so they stayed with us. It was super fun!"

"We took a bunch of chairs to the mission office because our apartment is already small enough without 4 chairs! I am using the ball as my chair and it works great!"

"This was picking up the new missionaries at the Front Runner. All the departing missionaries had already left that morning, but Elder Baldry's flight wasn't leaving until 3 so he came!"

So I just got flipped off in sacrament meeting and we scared
the crud out of every member in the Midvale second ward.

On Thursday morning we went on exchanges and Elder Shaffer and Elder Jensen went to
teach someone they met the day before, and Elder Meyers and I knocked around and
met D. He walked into the building while we were at a door and then
invited us into his apartment. He seemed like a cool guy, but he was going through a
lot and was pretty high strung. He told us that he had seven days to leave and at
times he was emotional about it. Our conversations didn't really seem to go
anywhere, and he tended to dominate the conversation, but he was super nice and he gave us some of
his clothes he wasn't gonna wear because he was packing all of his possessions
in a back pack and told us he was going to New York where he used to live.

"Hiked Granger Peak again! Preston and Becca, we aregoing to hike this someday!"

On Sunday morning he called and asked where church was and
what time it met. We were like, "Sweet! He survived and he is
coming!" When he showed up, we knew something was a little wrong. He seemed
pretty worked up about something and walked past us down the hall and we were
like, "Hey!" and he just jetted past us for the bathroom. Later,
before the meeting, someone came up to us and asked if we could sit with
D because he wouldn’t talk to anyone. He was sitting on the front bench
right in the middle and he had his eyes closed. A few people tried to introduce
themselves to no avail. The bishopric seemed unsettled and they kept going in
and out of the hall. He was acting kinda strange and as I looked to the left, I
saw that there were police officers in the hallway... "Are you kidding
me?," I thought, "we just brought a convict to church..."
Someone came over and whispered something in Elder Jensen's ear and then he
whispered in mine telling me that D had been very aggressive in the
parking lot and asked if we could ask him to come in the hall with us. I was
sitting right next to him, and was super nervous, but I tapped him and said,
"Hey, D."That's when I
got the middle finger in my face in front of the whole congregation. Elder
Jensen said he looked back, at that point, to a few faces of unbelief and
shock. You have to understand; at this point he hadn't said A WORD TO ANYONE. He had been totally silent with his eyes closed, but obviously awake.

I was super bummed and pretty nervous at this point. During
the sacrament prayer he started doing these weird stretches and then walked out
of the meeting. The police asked him to leave and he did.He actually called us later and things were
fine; we may have overreacted a bit.

I am kind of out of time but I have had some amazing times
testifying of Jesus Christ this week. Sorry I spent so much time telling that
story...

Monday, February 6, 2017

"Exchange breakfast of biscuits and gravy and French toast!"Elders Owen, Jensen, Moe and Baldry

Feb. 6, 2017

Dear Family,

This week has been a crazy one. Monday night we went to this
BBQ place that our Branch President took us to. Afterwards, Elder Jensen had an
upset stomach, but we worked the rest of the night. At about 2 am I woke up and
felt like garbage. When you’re sick you have this alone feeling at night like
your engulfed in darkness; that was it. I was sitting in the bathroom with a
bowl when Elder Jensen walked in on me; luckily I had the bowl. What followed
was three days of tag teaming the bathroom and consuming nothing but lemon lime
Gatorade that I never want to drink again. We came out of it slowly on
Thursday, but I am still experiencing side effects of the Imodium; I lost 15
pounds though.I am back to my weight
from sophomore year.I came away a
better man.Many prayers were said in
our bathtub and I feel like I came away stronger.

Sick tender mercies...

Elder Jensen gave me a blessing and he said that sometimes
as the body weakens the spirit is strengthened.

Elder Flaminano (a new missionary from the Philippines) gave
me a blessing in Tagalog because his English isn't very fluent. I didn't
understand what he said, but I felt an overwhelming sense of God's love.

I was able to sympathize better with all the sick people who
we have met this week

We felt good enough to go to Winco, and the 32 L Powerade
Zero was on sale for 67 cents. YES! NO MORE GATORADE!

The Midvale Elders got us a whole package of new toilet
paper

This week we had a miracle on exchanges! This family moved
here from California and we were finally able to have a lesson at their house.
We came in and sat down with the parents and they called their son in to join
as well. We were about to start, but then Elder Baldry saw that there was
another boy that was about 14 years old listening from across the room in the
hall. We asked him if he wanted to join us and he said, “yeah” and came over.
We asked some questions at the beginning and he was looking really intently at
the Book of Mormon that we gave him on the table in front of him. We asked him what
his thoughts were and he said quietly, "I just want to learn about this
book." We had an awesome lesson.There is power in the book and it is a voice speaking out of the dust
for those who are humble seekers of Jesus Christ.

Love, Elder Moe

(If the video doesn't show up, then click on the Elder Brinton Moe in the Salt Lake City East Mission link at the bottom of the page, or if it shows as an error, click on the youtube link in the black video box.)

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Met with President at his house for the first time about a
ton of stuff.

Went to taco time to eat and see Josh Landa and this lady
from Argentina needed to borrow our phone. We tried to talk to her. Lol

Wednesday

The World Wide Missionary Broadcast, we were in the council,
the schedule change and key indicators

We taught Albert Fajardo and I thought he was less active.
He is a non member Lol

Thursday

Weekly planning and we gave a training at zone conference

WENT TO BED AT 9!!

Friday

We drove to Wyoming for another zone conference.

The snow was sooooo high. There wasn't cement, just packed
snow.

I saw Debbie! She was serving food. Introduced her to
President Hillier. She bore her testimony.

Saw Allison Smith and President and Sister Lester.

President came in, “we are ready for you”, Us: “oh crud..”

Lost the keys like four times and prayed and found them.
Elder Walker lost his glasses on his face.

Actually lost the Subaru keys so we were stuck there.

Got back to dinner at 6 and it was an awesome dinner!
Brother and Sister Swapp. Camp food!

I finally met our on date investigator!

Met a guy named Mo

Saturday

Finished weekly planning

Had a lesson with Brother Hartman!

Sunday

Ton o church!

Planned as soon as we got up. (The schedule is still way
cool)

We went to the combined meeting on religious freedom and I
learned a ton!

Mommy Vs baptism! (So good)

The Gonsalvases came to the baptism!

We sang I Am A Child of God in Thai

Went and ate a ton of Thai food!

Gonsalves miracle fellowshipper!

Tracked into Monisa (NM) and Taylor (LA) super
prepared!

This week I met someone else that knew uncle John. Hahah. We
brought him to a lesson and he served his mission in Manhattan. He was like,
“Bishop Moe??" "To bad you don't get to see him in the temple
anymore." Lol There was a bishop
in my last area that had also met him.

In the missionary Broadcast they did the video as if they
were bringing us into meet with the missionary counsel. There's so many things
about missionary work in the mission that you don't realize apostles of God
have sat and counseled together to make decisions on the way things are. It was
just a really cool opportunity to see that they meet weekly and talk about us.
They really are our companions!

So, our training after the “oh crud” moment wasn't as bad as
it could've been, also wasn't as great as it could've been. We were in the
Relief Society room planning while zone conference was going on and we weren't
really sure when we were going to have to train. We had given the training four
other times, so we pretty much knew what we were gonna say, we just felt a
little bit less prepared not having reviewed it before. It actually turned out,
by the end, to be one of the more spiritual ones though!

Seeing Debbie was so amazing. When people get baptize
sometimes you wonder if they will stay active in the church. She had called in
and volunteered to help feed us. She got to meet President and she seemed like
she was doing great!

There were a ton of people at the baptism; all of Momma V’s
family from out of town came. The best part was she got up and bore testimony.
She talked about when her mom left her and when she came back over 30 years
later, she didn't seem like the same person. She had been through a lot and
their relationship was not great. She said in these last few weeks she's found
the woman she was looking for; she found her mom.

Love, Elder Moe

"We went to visit this sick guy whose wife asked us to give him a blessing. They were nonmembers."

Elders Moe and Jensen treated to dinner by some awesome members :)

If the video doesn't show up, then click on the Elder Brinton Moe in the Salt Lake City East Mission link at the bottom of the page or, if it shows as an error, click on the youtube link in the black video box.